While last week’s COP22 highlighted the need for stronger North-South cooperation, Energy Cities presented in Marrakech the ADEME-supported Display® Campaign to cities within the Maghreb.

During this side event titled ‘Display®, let your buildings talk’ Ian Turner provided a background of the Display® campaign and the success that it has achieved in Europe over the last decade. He explained how hundreds of cities across Europe have been able to interact with public buildings users’ to sensitise and communicate the importance of energy efficiency and water conservation in public buildings.

Thierry Meraud from the French Energy Agency ADEME opened up the session with an introduction to his Agency and the role that they play in promoting the energy transition in France and the Maghreb.

Councillor Daniel Guillotin illustrated how within the city and metropole of Rennes, Display® has played an important tool over the last decade in helping combat climate change. Within the area of Rennes each year they organise a friendly competition between the towns. Each town competes against the other to reduce the energy and water consumption of their buildings. Display is used to show the savings achieved per building category.

Adnane Al Ghazi from the Morrocan city of Oujda (450,000 inhabitants, Morocco) provided a quick overview of the Sustainable Energy Action plan (SEAP) . As new Display users, the city will be able to now visualise the energy and water usage of their public buildings. The very first Display® poster of the city hall revealed a poor water performance of the building and triggered investigations on the reasons and planning solutions. Oujda will now be working with their twin city Lille, with Display® as a common working tool.

The presentations were followed by fruitful debate with participants around future possibilities of making Display® more smart by linking the poster to smart metres.